South African History Online

Speech by President Nelson Mandela on the 50th anniversary of the 1946 Passive Resistance campaign and the launch of the commemorative publication

Durban, 13 June 1996

Members of The Fiftieth Anniversary of the 1946 Passive Resistance
Council;
Members of the Institute for Black Research and the University of
Natal;
Ladies and Gentlemen,

We meet here today to commemorate an epic of our struggle for liberation.

Exactly 50 years ago to this day, a gallant group of men and women defied the
latest racist laws inflicted upon one of our disenfranchised peoples.

As the government tightened the screws of oppression against the Indian
population during the nineteen forties, it reached the point at which it moved
to impose further restrictions on ownership of land. This was combined with the
declaration that Indians were to be represented in parliament by three White
MPs.

Having seen what the 1913 Land Act had done to Africans, Indians were not
about to take the Ghetto Act lying down. They defiantly set up tents at the
corner of Gale Street and Umbilo Road, a white residential area, and waited for
the police to arrest them. The police did not do so. Instead, hooligans from the
neighbourhood descended on the resisters, ripped their tents and assaulted them.
True to their commitment to non-violence, they did not retaliate.

From those small beginnings, the campaign grew and drew into its ranks
thousands of people across the racial divides. More and more streamed to the
forbidden plot until the police could no longer ignore them. Night after night
scores were arrested and night after night large numbers flocked to occupy the
plot.

When the pernicious Act was introduced in Parliament, people gathered in
their thousands at the Resistance Plot.

The 1946 campaign also saw the internationalisation of our struggle. The
South African Indian Congress approached India, on the eve of her independence,
to raise the issue of racism in South Africa at the United Nations. India became
a champion of the world campaign against all forms of racism.

India recalled her High Commissioner. Even though the balance of trade was in
her favour, she broke off economic relations with South Africa. These actions
marked the beginning of the isolation of the racist regime.

The campaign fired the conscience of South Africans at large and the ranks of
those who joined up and suffered imprisonment included people from every section
of our society.

The Passive Resistance Campaign also initiated united action against
oppression. In 1947 Dr Xuma of the ANC, Dr Naicker of the Natal Indian Congress
and Dr Dadoo of the Transvaal Indian Congress signed what later came to be known
as the "doctors pact" and committed their organisations to a future of united
action.

The campaign's success and its lessons influenced our thinking as we drew up
the 1949 Programme of Action which ushered in the momentous decade of the
roaring fifties. The ANC and the South African Indian Congress jointly embarked
on the Defiance Campaign in 1952. This period also brought resistance to the
imposition of gutter education, the launching of a series of anti-pass campaigns
that saw women marching on the Union Buildings in 1956 and culminated in the
mass protests of 1960 and the subsequent banning of the ANC and the PAC. Thus
was inscribed in our hearts the uncompromising warrior pledge - Victory or
Death!

Today as free citizens, we salute the activists of the 1946 Campaign. A few
survived the times. We have with us Ismail Meer, J N Singh and Dr Goonam.
Leading the campaign were Doctors Naicker and Dadoo who went on to guide the
democratic movement for many years. On this occasion we lower our rainbow flag
for M.D Naidoo, Nana Sita, Debi Singh, Amma Naidoo, Cissy Gool and scores of
others who courted imprisonment rather than obey racist land restrictions.

Present with us are some other stalwarts of that campaign. I salute all of
them.

To commemorate that campaign the Institute for Black Research has published a
book. I have the honour of officially launching this latest contribution to our
history and I commend the Institute for Black Research for its sterling work.

I also have the honour of opening a photographic exhibition of the 1946
campaign organised by the Sastri College Alumni Association.

Friends:

Our work is never done. We continue until we breathe our last. What Doctors
Naicker and Dadoo left unfulfilled, it is our duty to accomplish.

So the struggle must continue, for development, for the elimination of
poverty, for job creation, for a better life for all. The forthcoming Local
Government elections will establish structure that will bring to our locality
the power to fulfill our aspirations. Local democracy will help to make a
reality at last of the ideals which inspired the passive resisters of fifty
years ago. We will go to the polls on the 26th of June with the memory of that
campaign refreshed in our minds.

Amandla!

Issued by: Office of the President